A Time to Dance

So tonight, I finished The Life and Teachings of Hillel by Yitzhak Buxbaum.

I was reading about a Jewish celebration during Sukkot called the Rejoicing of the Water-Drawing. The night before this ceremony is filled with a vigil that can only be described as a serious party. It was wild. You wouldn't think so when you read about the hasidim who sing the hymns and praises of God. Until you read that this involved acrobatics. Literally. And juggling of torches. I'm not kidding; Simon ben Gamaliel (the son of Paul the apostle's teacher and a significant rabbinic figure in his own right) would come to the party and juggle eight torches without one touching the other (Sukkah 53a). And that's before you hear about his dance moves that, to me, seem somewhat akin to breakdancing. Then there was another guy, Ben Yehotzedek, who "was famous for delighting everyone with his spectacular acrobatic leaps during the dancing" (Y. Sukkah 5:4).

Hillel the Elder (quite possibly the most influential rabbi in Judaic history) was all about the party, too. He said "that when a Jew's heart was filled with love for God his feet carried him to the Temple; once there and at such a time of celebration, the love in his heart caused his feet to leap and dance" (Buxbaum 258).

To take it a step further, the "rabbis taught that the holy spirit would not descend on a person sad or dull, but only on someone joyful from doing a mitzvah" (Buxbaum 258, referencing Shabbat 30b; [definition: a mitzvah is a deed done for the sake of heaven, which often refers to a deed that shows love and kindness to another person]).

So we've got people who are joyful from doing good deeds for the sake of others, who are drawn to the Temple to rejoice and praise God, and in the midst of all the partying and music and dance, the Holy Spirit would fall upon some of the hasidim (pious ones) and "they [would] become 'vessels' to receive the holy spirit and then poured it forth in inspired teaching to the masses of people" (Buxbaum 259, referencing Ruth Rabbah on 2:9).

(Wow, this kind of sounds like the same Holy Spirit that we Christians think we "own," doesn't it? Hmm.... But I digress.)

And yet the coolest thing about this, at least on the part of the rabbis and the hasidim, was that serious effort was made to convey that all this partying was about God and God alone. It wasn't just about partying. It was about maintaining an inward spiritual focus on God and responding in the only manner even close to expressing how it feels to be doing God's will and worshipping Him within the community of believers. It was authentic. It was the real deal.

Rewind to this morning's church service.

I can't even begin to describe how amazing worship was today, except to paint it in contrast to the utter dryness I've felt over the last several months (not because anything was "bad" about worship, but because...I don't know...I'm just in a weird place right now). Today, for the first time, I left the sanctuary feeling like all the empty places in me had been filled. I was almost lightheaded with joy--and peace, which this time of year is amazingly rare.

I didn't dance; I didn't do any flips or juggle any candles. But somehow, today's time was one where every part of my inner self was crying out to God in praise of His goodness--not for help, but because I couldn't rest until I had spent myself telling Him how great He is! It just kept welling up and out of me, maybe not always loudly, but strongly, even to the point of tears (which for me are also rare). Tears of joy. Of exaltation.

There are things I don't understand with my rational senses. Today was one of them. But it was so cool.

When Buxbaum talks about the rabbis at these festivals, he talks about their dancing, et. al, as a humbling of themselves, ignoring any personal dignity they might have possessed in order to serve God in this other manner. It reminds me of something Gyle said today; it also reminds me of how King David humbled himself dancing in the streets.

There is a time to mourn and a time to dance; we see this clearly in Ecclesiastes. Not all times are for jumping; not all times are for crying; not all times are loud; not all times are quiet. But there are times for each of these.

I'm not great about letting myself go in such moments. I overthink things; I tend to worship very much out of my head and not out of my emotions. I have a hard time standing on a stage and then trying to force myself to do something outside of my inner inclination because it seems like it's the thing to do to support the direction the service is taking. But yet I also wonder and ponder these things, when I see that the great Jewish sages were big enough to make themselves small, to make seeming fools of themselves because they just didn't care what other people thought or even how they themselves felt; they just wanted to give God everything in a moment that warranted such responses.